Current computer systems provide individuals with opportunities to produce documents of professional quality, such as with desktop publishing software and graphics software programs. The ability to manipulate the appearance of the text within these programs is vital in allowing users greater flexibility and creativity in document production. Included in these manipulations are changes in fonts, justification, size, and other aspects of the appearance, such as bolding and italicizing.
Although most programs can perform manipulations with some level of success, each program has a limitation in its range of manipulations due to design considerations. Some programs, such as QuickDraw GX from Apple Computer, Cupertino, Calif., provide more sophistication and enhanced capabilities than other programs to allow more choices for users. Unfortunately, these enhanced capabilities are normally not transferable to other programs. Thus, attempts to incorporate such capabilities, such as different fonts, from one program into another are also usually quite limited and typically unsuccessful.
Accordingly, a need exists for a flexible and portable system that allows accurate and efficient manipulations of textual data in a graphics system. The present invention addresses such a need.